Only that one time the welcome hiss of choices greeted the old woman with heated voices, and the squall-like approach of lunar friendship escaped the sky of its open gentle anger. Perhaps before, the woman had been given just another form of money that wore its empty clothes to her costly service. The given body’s plenty contained a ruby-red melt of sharp pepper heart. Stained with … Continue reading Never a Lamb Bleating So Softly as the Waning Moon by Rich Ives

This happened in Detroit or Iceland. This is inside me. It’s not something you can fully comprehend unless you’re carrying a giant measuring device of Celtic origin or one of those mirrored spy cameras that allow you adequate perspective. This is a territory. This is a bringing together of disparate leaves. I fix things, an elk-like tendency to bugle, old rose bushes with too many … Continue reading Morality and Intention in the Novel of Faulty Utensils by Rich Ives

Whenever a spooky or sinister holiday arrives (one that isn’t Valentine’s Day), literary enthusiasts tend to proudly bandy Edgar Allan Poe as the author to read for celebrating said balefulness. And sure, reveling in your The Fall of the House of Usher here or your The Tell-Tale Heart there is all well and good for getting in the spirit of the macabre. But ultimately, what’s going … Continue reading The Most Sinister Friday the 13th Literature Isn’t From Poe, But V.C. Andrews

I recall a theory that says time stops at the surface of a Black Hole as light falls into it. I can believe it as I watch the stars disappear on the lake. The silence sits in a theory of its own. An ambiguous and amorphous appendage of hollow-eyed indifference. I know the bolted bones of the body will break down. The vessel that chills … Continue reading New Year Meditations by Bray McDonald

Life is so short Nabokov explains Our existence is But a brief crack of Light between two Eternities of darkness Or in Su Dongpo’s words Is a white foal fleeting Across a narrow gap Indeed, brevity is the Soul of English, and Everything else, so Let’s cut it short And even shorter To make life long Longer than art Continue reading Celebrating Shortness by Yuan Changming

Those eyes of feeble quietness peer so deeply; difficult To fathom yet holy enough to consider you saved, Oh, what have you eaten? Your breath smells of aromas I only dreamt of in the hole, The graphic details you hold dear from the other night Has become who you are tomorrow and the next however, On the knees, beckoning miss frail by the book, Conjoined … Continue reading Seldom; He Was A Sinner by Alex R. Encomienda